Niki Arrowsmith04.18.13
Smiths Medical, a medical device company headquartered in St. Paul, Minn., has inked a deal with Epic Systems Corp. to develop connectivity between its infusion systems and Epic’s electronic medical records (EMR) system. Smiths will use Integrating the Healthcare Enterprise (IHE) standard profiles to establish communication between the systems. IHE USA represents health information technology (IT) interests in the United States, and works towards the adoption of a consistent set of information standards to enable interoperability of health IT systems.
“Using the IHE frameworks allows us to join with other industry partners to develop a standardized method of communicating information and ultimately helps reduce medication errors,” said Tommy Johns, vice president of global product management for Smiths.
Infusion systems such as Smiths Medical’s Medfusion syringe pumps and Cadd ambulatory infusion pumps, are programmed by clinicians to provide patients with medication according to their therapy needs. The systems, which include Pharmguard medication safety software for use on a personal computer or via the Web, are touted to allow pharmacists to develop drug libraries according to hospital-defined protocols, wirelessly deploy libraries to the pumps, wirelessly collect and manage patient therapy data, and track trends in compliance and medication dosing.
Smiths Medical’s interface development and testing agreement with Epic is hoped to help transfer infusion data to the Epic EMR system to capture data from Smiths Medical’s infusion systems via Pharmguard server software. The result will allow a clinician to use an EMR system to automatically send therapy data to and from patient records, saving clinicians time in daily workflow, increasing documentation accuracy, and improving patient safety by reducing the chance of errors that can occur with manual data entry.
Smiths Medical, which is part of Smiths Group plc, focuses on the medication delivery, vital care and safety devices market segments.
Epic Systems Corp. is based in Verona, Wis., and makes medical software for midsize and large medical groups, hospitals and integrated healthcare organizations.
“Using the IHE frameworks allows us to join with other industry partners to develop a standardized method of communicating information and ultimately helps reduce medication errors,” said Tommy Johns, vice president of global product management for Smiths.
Infusion systems such as Smiths Medical’s Medfusion syringe pumps and Cadd ambulatory infusion pumps, are programmed by clinicians to provide patients with medication according to their therapy needs. The systems, which include Pharmguard medication safety software for use on a personal computer or via the Web, are touted to allow pharmacists to develop drug libraries according to hospital-defined protocols, wirelessly deploy libraries to the pumps, wirelessly collect and manage patient therapy data, and track trends in compliance and medication dosing.
Smiths Medical’s interface development and testing agreement with Epic is hoped to help transfer infusion data to the Epic EMR system to capture data from Smiths Medical’s infusion systems via Pharmguard server software. The result will allow a clinician to use an EMR system to automatically send therapy data to and from patient records, saving clinicians time in daily workflow, increasing documentation accuracy, and improving patient safety by reducing the chance of errors that can occur with manual data entry.
Smiths Medical, which is part of Smiths Group plc, focuses on the medication delivery, vital care and safety devices market segments.
Epic Systems Corp. is based in Verona, Wis., and makes medical software for midsize and large medical groups, hospitals and integrated healthcare organizations.